


What If?

by FriendlyFrat_Boy



Category: Dexter (TV), Dexter Series - All Media Types, Dexter Series - Jeff Lindsay
Genre: Also Vogel does not exist., Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, I might also have a few What-if's for the book series, I think I might write Dexter more like he is in the books than the series, Neither does Debster., Refrences to the books, Revelations, Serial Killers, Spoilers, That shit nasty yo, Torture, What-If, can take place during any season, i dunno yet - Freeform, just a lot of spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyFrat_Boy/pseuds/FriendlyFrat_Boy
Summary: A series of mostly unrelated "What If?'s" wherein I explore what could have been if things didn't go the way they did. Most are one-shots, but some might be longer.Chapters 1-3: What if Dexter killed Paul? (and What if Rita found out?)After confronting Paul about his case against Rita, Dexter decides to do what he does best and get rid of him the most obvious way he can. He dumps the body in his usual spot, and this is no problem. That is, until 19 bodies are discovered off the Bay and people start wondering what Paul did to deserve his spot among the killers and rapists.(To come in the future sometime)What if Dexter attended Vince's seminar?That part of the third season always made me sad. Therefore, I will use it to deepen Dexter's relationship with Vince Masouka, since it was always one of my favourites. Might contain Dexter x Masouka, might contain bromance, might contain Vince-finding-out. I don't know yet.A What-if centring AngelI have no idea what the story will be, but damn do I love Angel. Sometime in season two, Dexter straight-up tells Angel "if there was one real person I would like to be, it would be you" and that just. Stuck with me. Nothing concrete yet though.
Relationships: Rita Bennett/Dexter Morgan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	1. What if Dexter Killed Paul? Pt.1

**Author's Note:**

> Yooooooo! Welcome! I briefly considered making this a bunch of smaller series like one-shots and stuff, but eh. Boring. Let's do this instead! Also, I kind of merged two What if? ideas I had into one for this first one, namely "what if Paul found out?" and "what if Rita found out?" cuz I love their characters and I love the idea of Paul trying to convince Rita to break off with Mr Perfect (aka Mr Bay Harbour Butcher) by convincing her he was a serial killer, but... eh. This'll be fine. I think. Probably. 
> 
> Man, I've just always liked Paul. Don't get me wrong, terrible person, terrible things he did, I'm not defending a wife-beatin' druggie. I just like how despite all that shit, he still loves his kids. Ya get me? Anyways since I liked him so much I decided to kill him off :3
> 
> Enjoy!

"Paul, we need to talk."

"What, now? While I'm in my boxers?" Dexter nodded, face straight and cool. Paul sneered. "Heh, sure, Mr Knight-in-shining-armour. Was she too much of a coward to come here herself? Or did you come here on your own or something?" Somehow, Dexter could already tell that this conversation wouldn't go down smoothly. Paul was much too emotional and Dexter was much too hard.

Since Paul made no move to let Dexter inside the crummy little apartment, he had no choice but to force his way in, which was rather easy since his opponent wasn't exactly well dressed.

"-You have to drop your charges against Rita," Dexter said once he was fully inside that crusty, messy apartment. Compared to his own, it was like summer and autumn. Messy, messy. Just the way Dexter hated it. If there was anything he hated, it was a mess. Messy blood, messy apartment, messy legal trouble. "If you don't-,"

"You'll… what?" Paul asked, closing the door behind them. His face was a relaxed, confident 'what'cha gonna do?' perfectly content with holding all cards. "Hey, she did this to me, remember?"

Oh, he remembered it alright. How he'd come home one day, only to find out that Paul had been there. Done things. Had things done to him. By all means, Rita did the right thing. Hitting him over the head like that. A little messy, maybe, he'd personally have gone for a sharper weapon, but it did the job. The bandage thrown about Paul's head made that clear enough. "And why did she do that, again?"

"Ask her, not me! I was just there to see my kids, it was my honest-to-God right to!" Paul said indignantly, shoulders and brows thrown up for good measure. The perfect picture of honesty.

Dexter threw him a glance before continuing through the apartment and taking a seat, placing his black tote-bag at his feet. "I asked her. She said you… tried to do something to her," Dexter said, eyes narrowing. "As charming as you are, I'm afraid I can't let someone like you intrude on her life anymore. On her kids' life. They need a real father, someone who will love them. Care for them. You lost that right the moment you violated their mother."

Paul's face darkened, his jaw clamped shut. "Don't you dare tell me I'm not their father." His hands clenched tight, knuckles whitening. "I love those kids more than anyone! More than you ever will!"

And maybe that was true. Dexter had no capacity for love, no sense of pity or care. However, that did not stand true for children. Not entirely, at least. He may never love Astor and Cody the same way Paul did, but in some way, he loved them more than anyone. In that way, he couldn't see them suffer. Rita was another matter. If it had just been her and Paul, if she hadn't been such a perfect cover, he wouldn't have hesitated to throw her to the wolves. Or, in this case, wolf.

No, since things were the way they were, he had to do something. The only way he could. "If you truly love them, you wouldn't hurt their mother," he said, leaning back. "Right now, you're just a rabid animal." -And what do we do with rabid animals?

Paul ground his teeth together, black fire raging in his dark eyes. "You-, I'd never hurt them! It was once, it'll never happen again!"

"Are you sure?" Dexter asked.

A simple yes-or-no question. The kind that usually didn't need thought to answer. Paul hesitated. His hands trembled, and when he looked at them, scowl deepening into a frown, could he honestly say they were done hurting? "I…" No, drugs or not, that wasn't the problem. There had been more to poor pent-up Paul than just booze, heroin and crack. Something that not even rehab could wring out of him. "...No, I can't promise that."

He sat down. Threw his body on the couch, all prior pride cast aside. Dexter straightened out, got a good look at Paul's face.

There was no sympathy in those eyes. Or, no. It was a sort of sympathy. Not one Paul saw often, at least, not outside bars. Sympathy from one hurter to another. One that couldn't promise to another. The sigh of a man having to put down a rabid racoon he used to feed bread now and again. Paul stared into those eyes, and he saw, for once, what he thought he saw the very first time he saw the man. Emotions peeled away. Anger, hurt, determination… It was all shed, revealing Dexter for what he truly was inside. Hollow.

There was a prick. Paul hadn't noticed how Dexter moved, grabbing something from inside his pocket. Thrusting the needle into Paul's neck.

It felt good. Like doing heroin all over again.

He fell asleep.

And just like that, Dexter broke two rules of the Code. Don't get emotionally involved, and don't hurt someone innocent, though he'd justified the latter one since Paul admitted he would hurt someone in the future. Nipping a problem in the bud. That's what this was. The problem just happened to be a person, and the bud was their throat. He briefly considered taking a drop from Paul, but… no. He couldn't. Paul Benett was not someone Dexter would be proud to have killed. He was… a mercy kill, if anything.

A rabid animal to be put down. That was how Dexter justified it.

Tools spread out on the small kitchen counter, Dexter waited for Paul to wake up. He hadn't brought most of his tools. Nothing fancy, just his line of knives and pliers, things that would make any dentist blush. Paul wouldn't take long. Dexter wouldn't let him take long. After all, letting an animal suffer needlessly was… immoral, as Harry had put it. Killers didn't count as animals, so Dexter could do with them as he pleased.

When Paul awoke, naked and wrapped from head to toe in tight, constricting plastic, he didn't make a sound. Didn't whimper, didn't speak a word. Not immediately, at least. Not until Dexter came around to stand at his side, looking down at him.

Dressed in his plastic gloves and latex, Dexter thought he must look quite dashing. Paul disagreed. "Pfff, how the hell are you dressed? Did you come straight from painters anonymous?" His eyes, upside-down from arching his neck to get a good at Dexter, wrinkled in amusement. "Or are you into that latex stuff? Real charming, try convincing Rita to-," Dexter stuffed a swab of cotton into Paul's mouth to keep him from saying that last part. What a rude man.

"Shh. No need to be like that, Paul," Dexter tutted, turning his back on his soon-to-be victim. Paul gave a hoarse laugher (with his neck tied by plastic wrap it was a surprise he could speak at all) that ended as soon he actually got a look at something that wasn't his wife's boyfriend.

The room. His kitchen. Wrapped head to toe in plastic. Dangling from the roof like hospital-sheaths. It made his kitchen seem so… sterile. White. Not-his. Something else. A room whose purpose had been altered. For… what, exactly? What was happening? Paul hadn't been able to tell until now, couldn't understand why Dexter was dressed like that, or why he couldn't move. Now he knew why. He was tied down on his table, every limb he had forced into paralyzation.

He arched his neck again, sneaking a glance at his captor. A band of plastic covered his head, kept his forehead down, but it was elastic enough to give him a glance at what Dexter was up to.

He was standing by the counter, arms still at his sides, carefully eyeing a line of metallic, shimmering tools. Deciding what to pick. What to use. When he turned back to Paul, his choice had been made, and a plier dangled loosely in his grasp. It was chrome, glimmering and as flawless as a surgical instrument. Paul hoped it wasn't about to be used for what he thought. Dexter flicked the wad of wool out of Paul's mouth. Giving him a chance to speak. "H-, hey, you can stop this now, I get the message, let's just-,"

His finger was broken before he could register it happening. Metal twisted and bit into his flesh, cracking the bone by mere pressure. A twist of Dexter's wrist ensured that it became more than that, forcing the finger in the wrong direction in the wrong way and the way Dexter's eyes lit up at the sight was so wrong and-,

Dexter stuffed the cotton back into Paul's mouth before he had the chance to complain. He jerked, body thrashing uselessly against his constraints, broken finger flopping where it was. Dexter didn't seem to mind.

"I'm only doing this as a courtesy," he said, grabbing Paul's wrist hard to keep it in place long enough for him to get a solid take on another one of his fingers. "Even if I'm only doing this to get rid of you, letting you slip away so easily wouldn't sit right." Slip by? Courtesy? Paul's mind thumped and beat with blood and pain, but through that pain, the mind-numbing pain that followed whatever the hell Dexter was doing to his hand, one thought cut through it all:

Who the hell was Dexter anyways?

The tools. The room. The outfit. The courtesy. His lack of emotion on this very moment... There was only one assumption Paul could make, and it put everything he cared for - everyone he loved in jeopardy. "Mpphh, mhhmph!" he mumbled through the cotton wad in his mouth, trying to keep his mouth and tongue from betraying how he truly felt. If he didn't keep his mind cool, he might just scream.

Dexter turned to him. His eyes were hazy, distant and true. No phoney smiles or fake jokes. It confirmed Paul's suspicions and worsened his fears. This man… was not human. Dexter stared deep into Paul's eyes, picking up on the determined look in them. "Will you scream if I remove the cotton?" Paul shook his head fervently. He wouldn't. Not that his crack-whore neighbours would hear him. "Well, alright. If you make one sound I don't like, I'll cut your tongue right out of your mouth before you realize what happened."

And with that, the dry thing that soaked up Paul's spit and drool was removed. He breathed for a few seconds. "I-, y-, you… don't-,, don't hurt them," he pleaded. Dexter's eyes turned owlish. "M-, my family-, don't-,"

The cotton swab was quickly stuffed back in his throat. "I heard you. Don't worry." The look Dexter gave him was unsavoury at best. "I'm not like you. I would never hurt those kids."

Somehow, Paul believed him. And it was the last thing he believed.

After all, once Dexter got going, he truly got going. Paul didn't even have time to write Dexter's name in blood before he no longer had any fingers to write with. Screaming didn't help, it just made his throat worse off than it already was. He wished, for a moment, that he'd had friends. People who would miss him if he disappeared. Knowing Rita, the way she'd been lately, all she'd do was heave a sigh of relief, knowing he was gone. That is, assuming that Dexter left a body for the police to find. His hands were gone now. Just… poof gone. Severed by the wrist. He'd gotten between the bones. No bone-saw needed. Maybe Paul would've been impressed if it wasn't his own hands that were cut off.

In the maelstrom that was his own death, he almost missed hearing the knocking. A faint knock on the door. Mere minutes before he succumbed. Dexter didn't miss it either. His head swivelled up, removed from his task. A moment passed in silence. Paul didn't have the strength to muster a scream.

Another knock. Dexter glanced down at Paul, understood that he would make no attempt, and got back to work. Paul's phone rang, but since Dexter didn't answer it, it soon flickered out, replaced by more knocking and shouting. The knocking continued for a few more minutes, growing stronger each time, until the person finally stormed off. Probably Ricky. He never did pay him back for those two rows of blow.

No matter, soon enough, that wouldn't matter at all.

And it didn't.

That very night, Dexter missed a date. It was unusual for him, leaving Rita stranded at South Beach all alone, waiting for company that wouldn't arrive. He'd never stood her up before, had he? Not that she could remember, at least, and it made it all the more memorable. She called him, left him messages, and he didn't respond to any of them. By 23, she chose to simply go home. The babysitter couldn't hang around all night and neither could she.

Before doing so, however, she swung by his apartment. Knocked a few times on his door. No response. Where in the world could he have been? Hopefully, he wasn't trying to confront Paul on his own.

Paul was a dangerous guy, Rita knew that very well, and although she really wished he'd come to his senses, that was for her to make sure of. Not Dexter. She loved Dexter, she saw him as someone she could… could what? Spend her life with?... Maybe so. He was important to her, she trusted him, but she didn't want him to deal with all the problems her husband left behind. Her problems weren't his, and she didn't want him to think they were.

For a moment, she considered swinging by Paul's apartment, just to see if he was there. But… no. She couldn't face Paul, not out in the open. Not somewhere they wouldn't be seen.

So, she went home and went to bed. When she woke up at seven, she found her phone overloaded with messages from Dexter. Well, overloaded might be a tad bit hyperbolic, but considering that this was Dexter, two whole voice messages was more than she could have asked for. The first one, from five in the morning, was filled with regret and tattered excused. Said he'd been fishing. She doubted it. In the next message he assured her that he'd make up for it somehow, ending it with a strange reassurance. "I don't think Paul will be a problem anymore," he'd said. Damn it, Dexter.

Later that day, someone she recognized (but wished she didn't) showed up at her doorstep, demanding to see Paul. It was Ricky. She thought that was his name, anyway. Even though she tried to convince him that Paul didn't live there anymore, he kept grumbling about how he hadn't been at his apartment.

Finally, he asked if she had a key to it, which she obviously didn't. He wouldn't tell her why he had to get into his department, but knowing Paul and his acquaintances, it was surely drug-related.

Another minute of grumbling and Ricky lumbered off, surely to extort money from someone that wasn't her or her EX.

At least, that was how she thought it would go down. Imagine her surprise when Paul was reported missing a mere day later.


	2. What if Dexter Killed Paul? Pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rita is told the news of her ex's demise and grows suspicious of her boyfriend. After some time's observation, she talks to his one enemy: Doakes. All in an attempt to set things right, somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title: What if Rita started suspecting Dexter around the start of Season 2?
> 
> When I thought of this idea, I hadn't thought about how this would 10/10 lead to an outcome along the lines of this. Heheh. I'm excited for the next chapter!

Next month, a grisly discovery was made off the coast of Miami. Rita wouldn’t have thought anything of it, had a pair of officers not knocked on her door a mere week later. Two officers she happened to recognize. 

“Debra! What a plea-,” and that was as far as she got before the man standing beside Debra, a rather large, stout man with creased wrinkles around his eyes and a droop lining his cheeks flashed his silver badge. The name read ‘Angel Batista’. “Oh, um. Is this-?” A nod from Debra confirmed that this was, indeed, official business. “Oh, I… Come inside, of course.” Debra and Batista shared a look, one of those looks that cops so often shared, and stepped inside. 

While the all-business workers-of-the-state took a seat on her beloved couch, Rita trudged around her counter and into the open-air kitchen. Just to prepare a cup of coffee for them. It was, after all, almost noon. And noon called for coffee. 

What she failed to mention, however, was that this would also let her collect her thoughts. She knew Debra. The sister of Dexter - of her boyfriend. Maybe, sometime, she’d be more than that (maybe an in-law?), but that wasn’t important. Right now, Debra was a cop, not a sister. Her face was stuck in a rigid, hard imitation of one of the guys up on mount Rushmore. She’d be much prettier if she smiled, but Rita didn’t really have any say in that. 

Then, one might ask, why in the world was she giving Rita this face? And on her couch, too? It didn’t make sense. Unless this wasn’t about Rita at all, but instead-,

The echo of a name she hadn’t heard in a month scuttled through her mind unbidden. She hadn’t thought about him in so long. Could she honestly say his name gave her anything but goosebumps and shivers? That his mere mention made her feel anything but shame, no at their relationship, but at how relieved she was, knowing he was gone? This… this must be about him. Had they found him? Maybe he’d gone to Kentucky, or Mexico, or-,

No. That wasn’t it. Rita was no fool. Debra was in the homicide department, a transfer she had earned through blood, sweat and tears. She wasn’t here to tell Rita that someone had seen Paul in Stockholm. 

The reason she was there made Rita’s hair stand on edge. 

She wanted to hear it. She had to. Otherwise, her heart would remain empty. Bereft of mourning, of feeling.

“H-, how can I help you?” she asked, taking a seat as she placed a tray filled with coffee and cookies on the table. Batista glanced between her, the tray, and Debra, finally grabbing a cup of warm, invigorating coffee. Debra didn’t take any. All she did was give Rita a long, hard look that made her feel like the suspect on a late-night cop show nobody had ever heard of. “I-, um, if this is about Paul, I’d just… I’d like to see his b-, body. Make sure it’s him. Or-, or are you sure?”

They shared a glance again. Were they telepathic or something? Rita couldn’t tell. 

“-Miss Benett,” oh, that wasn’t good, “when did you last see your ex-husband?” So Batista asked. As if she could remember. No, hold on, she could very well remember when that was. It wasn’t a special day by any means, but…

“Yes. It was… the day before he was reported missing. We’d met to discuss his lawsuit against me,” Rita said, absently surveying a cookie in her grasp. Lemon curd. Not her favourite, but it could last ages. “So-, so this is about him? Have you found him yet? Is he still going to press-,”

“Rita,” Debra said, nailing Rita to the wall with an icy-cold stare. “We found him. You don’t have to identify his body. It’s him. You don’t have to be scared of him anymore.” Is that what that sudden reassuring smile was meant to be? Calming? Make her feel better, knowing that the plight of her adult life was-, was dead?... Rita choked back a sob. Debra’s smile grew an increment wider, surely believing that Rita’s tears were of joy, of gratitude. As if she could ever celebrate someone’s death. 

“We just need to ask a few things,” Batista said, putting down his now half-drained cup of Joe. “See, the way we found him, was…”

Here, Debra decided to take the reins again. “Do you know if Paul ever… killed anyone?” -Huh? “You were his wife. Did he ever tell you about doing something to someone, or if he wanted to hurt someone, or…” What in the world was she asking? Paul was hardly the face of Virtuous Anonymous, but he’d never done anything like that as far as Rita knew. Far from a good guy, but he’d never kill someone. 

“N-, no, that’s-, he’d never,” Rita defended meekly, feeling how her face was starting to scrunch together in loss and guilt. He was dead. He was really dead, and now they were asking her if Paul was a murderer?...

“Are you sure?” Batista asked, leaning in closer to her. “Are you absolutely sure he never killed anyone?” 

She steeled her spirits. Took a deep breath. “-Yes. He never killed anyone.”

Debra gave out a soft “shit” before gnawing down on a fingernail. If she was going to use her teeth anyway, why not eat a cookie? “Okay. Sure. He didn’t kill anyone. So why the hell…”

“Why what, Debra?” Rita asked, suddenly feeling meek and little. “Why is this so important?” Debra’s gaze anxiously wandered about the room, content with settling on anything that wasn’t Rita. “Officer Batista?” The older man acted the very same. Looking anywhere but at her. “Just-, just tell me! Where did you find his-, his body?!”

Debra sighed deeply. “Have-, you’ve seen the news, right? And you’ve seen the news about the latest killer to hit Miami?” Rita frowned absently. “The Bay Harbour Butcher. Those nineteen victims.” Why was she telling her this? Why-, “Paul was one of them.”

...What?

A great, heavy lump settled in Rita’s chest. Paul was-, was one of those bodies? Butchered? Stuffed inside one of those garbage bags she saw on the television? Thrown into the ocean like-, like garbage?... That heavy undefined lump, like an oversized tumour of wrong and bad seemed to press its way through her oesophagus, up her throat and out through her mouth. “-What?” 

Debra frowned. “We-, we don’t know. All we know-,” she said, her voice and facing turning monotone and report-like, “is that his body was recovered among 13 killers and five suspected murderers.” That told Rita exactly zero. “We have good reason to believe that the killer - the Bay Harbour Butcher, only killed other killers. Usually, people who would likely kill again. Or who simply slipped through the cracks in the system.” She scoffed, clearly showing no empathy for a killer who, by all means, seemed to be doing a good thing. 

Batista picked up where Debra left. “So, then, what the hell was your former husband doing down there if he never killed anyone?” 

Rita shook her head. She didn’t know. She couldn’t possibly know. This was-, this was a serial killer they were talking about, how in the world was she supposed to know how they thought? They might as well be aliens, aliens she wanted exactly nothing to do with. “I-, I don’t know. He wasn’t a killer, he just-,”

“Rita.” Debra cut through it all, took a hold of Rita’s hand, and pressed it gently in hers. “You don’t have to defend him anymore. He’s gone, you can tell us what he did.”

Rita shook her head. “No, that’s-, Paul did a lot of terrible things, but he never killed anyone!”

The more she said it, the more certain she grew. Paul wasn’t a killer. He didn’t have it in him, never did. 

Batista and Debra shared a final glance before they both stood up. Batista affixed her with a worried look. “Alright, that’s all we had to know. Just-, just think about it, alright? If you saw something weird around the time he disappeared, or heard someone say something strange, or just had something strange happen to you…” Batista gave a calm, comforting smile. “Just give us a ring, won’t you?”

And with that, the two officers of the law left, leaving Rita with a pot full of coffee and a head full of questions. 

The funeral took place two weeks later and was attended solely by Rita, her two children, and a certain Dexter Morgan. Rita did not cry at the funeral, but she cried in private when no one could see. Dexter was apathetic at best. During the entire happening, the only emotion that showed on his face was a stunning confusion. Not at the mystery of Paul’s death, not at the great question of what he was doing at the bottom of the Bay, no, it was all about how Rita reacted to it. She cried, and he stared at her, dumbfounded. He just didn’t get it. 

In some way, neither did she. Why should she mourn a man like Paul? A wife-beating druggie who hurt her and threatened Dexter and truly, sincerely loved his kids? 

Somehow, Dexter didn’t understand this. Being in a church didn’t seem to make him feel anything out of the ordinary. A man he used to know was dead, and he didn’t seem to care in the least.

“I don’t think Paul will be a problem anymore.”

-Why did that pop up again? Why did she have to think about that at this moment?... Dexter had said that, what, a month and a half ago? The morning after Paul disappeared. Sure, he was only reported missing on the day after Ricky asked after him, but going by how tenacious Ricky was about finding him, there was no doubt that Paul had disappeared on that day. The day Dexter stood her up. The day Dexter sent her a voice message long after dark. Telling her Paul wouldn’t be a problem anymore. 

...No. No, that was-, she couldn’t possibly be thinking that-, that Dexter?... No. No way. She’d be a little keener to believe it if Paul hadn’t been found among those other bodies. If his death wasn’t done by a certain butcher. 

Believing that Dexter somehow did Paul in was the same as believing that Dexter was, somehow, the Bay Harbour Butcher. And that just didn’t sit right. 

She loved Dexter, and Dexter loved her. She knew that, didn’t she? 

...Then, if he loved her, was it so strange to believe he’d do something about her abusive ex? The abuse ex who threatened her with legal action for her justifiable self-defence? Why, on paper, if she was to look at it that way… Whoever killed Paul might have even seemed heroic. Taking out the trash that was Paul. 

-The world was not so black-and-white. Paul was more than an abusive husband, and she could not condone his death. If she met whoever killed him…

She glanced over at Dexter, sitting at her side, gazing absently at the television screen. Eyes distant, he seemed to be elsewhere entirely. 

...She wouldn’t just take his existence lying down. She had to do something about it. 

She didn’t know what, but she’d do it. 

It was at this point that Rita started looking for the signs. What signs, you may ask? Why… that Dexter wasn’t who he said he was. That there was something off about him. It was painful to think about, painful to force herself to notice, but once she did… It was so obvious she barely understood how she had let it pass her by. His smile was never natural. Every time he gave a smile, something so common for him, it seemed strained and strange. His eyes never smiled. They were cold, callous and calculating. There, but distant. 

Before it all, when Dexter looked at her, she felt like a deer in the headlights of love. Struck by his charm and wit, smitten by the warmth she deluded herself into seeing in his eyes. That had all changed. When he looked at her, she was not an equal. She was a rabbit, small and scared and trembling. He was a wolf, towering over her, grey hairs stained with red. Teeth dripping with red. Eyes filled with cold, frozen red. 

He wasn’t human. She knew that now. 

Her suspicions seemed more and more well-founded by the day. Every date they had, every moment she spent in the same room as that man, she became more assured. He didn’t smile, he sneered. He didn’t gaze longingly, he studied her, as man does a bacteria. He didn’t love. At least, she didn’t think so. Maybe he did. She was starting to hope he didn’t. If he loved her… if he considered her to be someone worth killing for, he might not go down easily. 

Sometimes, Debra would send her a voice-mail to ask her if there was anything she was withholding, some detail about Paul that she hadn’t told the presses yet. There was nothing. 

Paul was innocent. Among the 19 bodies recovered, he was the only one lacking a reason. The outliner. The exception. And why was that? Of course, Rita had her theories. The most obvious one was that Dexter killed Paul since Paul was a deeply aggravating individual. He knew how to rile people up, and if Dexter got riled up by him… Was she even surprised that he did something like that? All humans have emotions, and who could be more aggressive than a serial-killer?

...Thinking about serial-killers and Dexter in the same vein still didn’t sit right with her. Still, she had no choice.

For a while, she thought of confronting Debra about it. Asking her if she knew what Dexter was, or if what Rita thought was truly how it was. Ask her if she knew what Dexter did on those days when nobody could find him. -In the end, she decided against it. How could she possibly tell Debra that her brother might be a psychopath? Even worse, a murderous psychopath?

No, talking to one of Dexter’s closest friends and family about what Dexter (might be) was out of the question. That left her with only one option. 

Talk to his enemies. 

She had noticed the car pretty quickly, all things considered. At night, it followed Dexter wherever he went. A modern car housing a vulture-eyed man who always seemed to see into her house, right at Dexter. He never met her eye. Always focused on Dexter. And when Dexter left, so did he. She didn’t know who he was, couldn’t know if he was a good or bad man, but… Considering the kind of man Dexter seemed to be, he couldn’t be all too bad. 

Interestingly enough, ever since the car and the man started following Dexter, he became more… jittery. Jumpy. On-edge, wide-eyed and sharp-toothed. The man in the car had an effect on Dexter. 

Or maybe it wasn’t the man himself, but what he kept Dexter from doing?

-She couldn’t know. She really couldn’t. All of this, all of these things about Dexter, it was all in her head, right? She was having weird thoughts and weird feelings and it just happened to go out over Dexter. He hadn’t done anything, after all. All he had against him was a weird message and a weird look in his eye that made Rita feel weird. 

This would all change depending on how the man with the vulture-eye saw Dexter. She had to know. 

He’d set her straight, tell her she was being an idiot… She needed that. Someone to disagree with her.

“The hell do you want?” he asked politely once he rolled down the car window, which he of course only did after she knocked three times. He probably hadn’t expected her to try and communicate with him, morse or otherwise, but… here she was. She had to talk to him. She was determined, and he was right here. He glanced inside her house. “You’re comfortable leaving the creep alone with your kids?”

Rita followed his eyes inside her home. Dexter with Astor and Cody.

-As strange as Dexter was, she knew he wouldn’t do anything to Astor and Cody. They loved him, and in his own strange, inhuman way, he seemed to love them, too. “-Yes. I am.”

Doakes stared down the petite woman who was probably about to confront him about his following her boyfriend. Maybe that freak tried sending her out as a substitute for himself, but Doakes knew Dexter better than that. That snake-man wouldn’t let his pretty little girlfriend so much as suspect that he was up to anything unsavoury. What he hadn’t expected, however, was that she would respond to his agitation with somewhat of a genuine answer. He readjusted his expectations. Narrowed his eyes. “Right.”

She took a deep breath. Her toothpick rib-cage filled with meek determination, and she returned his gaze. “I want you to tell me about Dexter.” Doakes cocked an eyebrow. “I-, I know he isn’t… normal.” 

That got his attention. A toothy grin split his face. “You finally noticed?” He gave a bellow of a laugh, “Man, and I thought I was alone!”

Somehow, this didn’t make her happy. She clutched the hem of her skirt closely and glanced down at the dark pavement below. “I… I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ve seen, what I think, and-, just tell me about him. What you’ve seen of him. What you think.” She bit her lip, face darkening. “What he is.”

Doakes grinned again. “He’s a damn freak’s what he is.” She opened her mouth to object, but Doakes shushed her before she could speak a word. “Ain’t human. Never been. I’ve seen my fair share. I’ve seen war, I’ve seen death. But what’s in Dexter…” For once, Doakes’ amused smile faltered. “It’s like looking in a fucking funhouse mirror. Everything in me, all I’ve done… I ain’t proud of it.” He turned back to Rita, eyes sharp and cold. “But Dexter?” A smile. “He wears it like a damn medal.”

She swallowed, lips pulled tight. If the answer wasn’t to her liking, she could leave. He didn’t need her help to keep tabs on Dexter. 

“What-,” she glanced off into the distance, “what can I do to help?...”

“-Huh?” Doakes hadn’t meant to make such a sound, but… he was genuinely dumbfounded. Her? Help him? That was… wow. A girlfriend. Helping her boyfriend’s enemy nail his ass to the wall. A strange situation, but in this case? Very helpful. Doakes leaned out of the window, looked up and down the road, took a glance into the girlfriend’s little house… “Alright, listen. If you suspect him of the same crime as I do…” he waited for her to nod before continuing, “-then, what I need you to do is find evidence. Something conclusive. Write down at what times you couldn’t reach him, on which nights he was gone without a trace.”

Rita nodded, clearly jutting his words down in her head. “-And?”

“And…” Doakes said, a little plan forming in his head. He grinned. “Here’s what I need you to do…”

She listened, nodded, and prepared herself to do what Doakes told her. 

It wouldn’t be easy, but she had to do it. 

If it didn’t pan out, at least she knew Dexter was innocent. 

Until then, she wouldn’t be able to sleep well at night.


	3. What if Dexter killed Paul? Pt.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so, this here is the last part of this special three-parter. The next one will just be a one-shot featuring Dexter and Masuka (bless his perverse ass) bonding and walking through their sadnesses in a real way. Right? Oh, also, if you've got any ideas for little one-shots like these (nothing huge like "What if Dexter didn't kill Brian" or other stuff that would do well as an entire multi-chapter thing, just simple stuff), put them in the comments! I might not do it, but I'll at least give it a lookie, yeah? Alright, enjoy.

At 18 ‘o clock sharp, Rita Benett knocked on Dexter Morgan’s door. She was dressed up nice and colourfully; a pink dress with strawberries on it. Nothing too much, just enough for him to think that she thought that this was a true, real date. One step to the right, one to the left. Fiddle with the hem of her dress. Glance down, look to the side. Knock again. Surely, he remembered? They’d had this planned for three days. She’d had it planned for two weeks. 

If he didn’t open, if he was out “working late,” or if he was out bowling, or-, the door gave a little oiled creak as it slid open. “Oh, Rita!” He looked her up and down, cold eyes observing her dress as being non-casual. “You’re… very well dressed.” His eyes turned to his own dressing, finding it… casual. “Sorry, I… didn’t think it was that kind of date, I-,”

“It’s fine, Dexter,” Rita said, giving a strained smile she hoped he wouldn’t see through. He didn’t. “Don’t worry about it.”

With a wry smile that squinted his eyes shut, Dexter held the door open for her to come inside. The inside of the apartment was, as always, absolutely immaculate. It was so clean, so well-organized that Rita felt tottery in comparison. She was no neat-freak, but she liked keeping things in order. Dexter… Dexter was on another level. His apartment was clean, drab, and boring. Not a single detail you could point to and place Dexter’s personality in. It was as if he stole his apartment from ‘Better Homes and Gardens’, taking his personality along with it. 

Crisp and clean. Hollow. 

“Everything alright, Rita?” Dexter asked, circling around to face her. An empty, dead smile sat plastered to his face like a piece of roadkill. “I’ve shown you my apartment before, haven’t I?” Oh, he had. Of course he had. But she didn’t remember that tour including anything of personal value. 

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Of course you have, I just… I just thought it looked very clean.” 

Was that a speck of arrogance she saw in his lightless eyes? “I take pride in my cleanliness. Really, I just don’t like it when everything’s… messy,” he said that last word with such disgust that it might as well have been a rotten cherry. “If my living-space is neat and organized, so is my mind.” He smiled, eyes far-off and distant, as they often were. “I am a very neat… man.”

She didn’t doubt that for a second. She just wished he’d keep the incriminating evidence on a shelf or something. Somewhere she could find it easily. 

Oh, hadn’t she mentioned that? No, she didn’t intrude on Dexter’s little private-space to have a cute couples date, not at all. The only reason she would willingly place herself somewhere Dexter might get her was in order to expose him. He was something. Not someone. And she needed proof. That’s what Doakes had told her, at least. If Doakes did something… Dexter would know immediately. But Rita could come and go as she pleased. Dexter had no reason to suspect her. All she had to do was find the evidence. 

Even so, she couldn’t help but feel uneasy. When she ate the food Dexter made, sat on the couch while he walked away and washed the dishes… It felt off. Strange. 

Months ago, when they just started dating, she could remember going on a date like this with Dexter. She got a babysitter for the kids, much like tonight, and then she went over to Dexter’s apartment. Took in his true self. Only then, she hadn’t seen a too-neat flat, the kind that was so ordinary that it could only hide something terrible, no, she had seen a very clean apartment. She’d seen a guy who could cook and clean and take care of himself, a man who liked taking care of his appearance. A charming trait back then, when she didn’t fear what his immaculate appearance might hide. 

It had been like being in a wholly different world, with a wholly different Dexter. A perfect Dexter who couldn’t possibly exist. The perfect gentleman. The perfect act. 

They didn’t go to sleep immediately. Why would they? No kids in the house. No distractions. Only Dexter, Rita, and a bed-for-two. Before they did it, she thought, for a moment, that if he truly wasn’t human, he truly wouldn’t be able to fake this part. That this deep part of human connection was something he would mess up, something that would let her peer deeper into his non-humanity, but… Not so. It didn’t happen. He was ordinary, there was nothing strange about him, and when they were conjoined there at night…

He felt like a real human being. A real human being who loved her.

And that idea scared her. 

The time was 02:21. She knew that for sure. She had checked the time, listened, laid still, and made sure. Made absolutely sure that Dexter was asleep, that he wouldn’t know. Assured, assured and terrified, she slipped out of bed, and began her search. If she hadn’t been so anxious, she might have begun in the bedroom. Might have checked beneath the bed, or inside the closets. See if there were any monsters. 

This she did not do. Instead, she left that room, that room where Dexter slept sweetly and soundly. She had to find something. She didn’t know what, or where, but she would find it.

The clock was ticking. 

Nothing in the kitchen apart from sharp knives she hoped weren’t used for anything bad. Nothing in his bookshelf apart from non-descript best-sellers and scientific texts she couldn’t understand. Nothing on the shelves. Nothing beneath the couch. Nothing in the freezer. Nothing in her head. Think, Rita, think! There has to be something! If there isn’t anything, that would mean she’d been imagining it all. That she’d projected some translucent image of a psychopathic monster onto her loving boyfriend. Nothing in her heart. 

Nothing in the cupboards. God, she had to get her mind out of the gutter! This was a matter of-, of something, and she didn’t have time to stand there dazed and naked, staring at the ventilation unit like it was about to hand her a bloody knife or something. 

Not that she wanted anything like that. -Really, she wasn’t sure what she expected. Doakes had riled her up real bad, made her think he might have committed some violent crime, but… a hidden compartment filled with drugs would be just as bad, right? Right. A hidden compartment…

Was it a trick of the light, but could she see something in there?...

In where? Why, in the air-conditioning! And that… that might have been the stupidest thought she’d had in a good while. Really now. The air conditioning. That was her next step? Genius. Next up she’d bust open the back of his microwave to check for rats. Real clever there, Rita. 

...Though, now that she looked closely, did the air conditioner even have screws holding it in place? Surely, it did. It wasn’t as if she could just pop it right off the wa-,

Pop. Oh. Guess she could. 

The entire face of it just… fell off. revealing the interior of an air conditioning unit. Nothing strange there, nothing to look at, nothing-, 

Nothing but a little compartment. And a little box. 

She slid it out. It was long and rectangular. Smooth. Rosewood. Well-crafted and well-loved. She flicked open the little golden hasp, and slowly, carefully, she opened it. She had expected drugs. What she saw might have been a little worse.

A line of perfectly immaculate little glass slides. She counted 46 of them, but there may have been more or less, she couldn’t be sure. Carefully, with slippery fingers, she removed one of them. Held it against the chuckling light of the silver moon. Between those two slides of glass, a single, pressed blood-drop could be seen. Frozen in time. Preserved forever. Whose was it? The victim of some homicide Dexter had solved? Unidentified blood at a crime scene? Was it-,,

Was it not related to his job as a blood-spatter analyst?...

...Whose blood was this?...

\--------

He awoke. 

For a startled moment, he hadn’t known why. Something was off. Something here was wrong. A dry chuckle came from the Dark Passenger and he knew that things were far from the way they should be. He was awake, for one, and at this hour it usually wasn’t a good thing. What had happened? What had he heard? Yes, that was it… a sound. He’d heard a sound. A human sort of sound, one he hadn’t made himself. Like a little soft gasp. Birdwings. 

Well, that wasn’t any out of the ordinary, Rita was over for the night, so having her make a sound wasn’t-,

Hold on. Where was Rita? The bed was cold and empty, the covers flat and bare. 

Dexter lifted his upper body into the air, feeling how his dune covers tumbled off. She wasn’t in bed. His upper body twisted and he gazed out into the darkness leading into the combined kitchen and living room. She was out there. Maybe he should have left it alone, spared himself the trouble of getting out of the bed at this dastardly hour… Left her to finish doing whatever she was doing. Getting a glass of water. Going to the bathroom. All typical nightly activities for a typical human. But it wasn’t typical of Rita. 

Rita was a mother of two. She got the sleep she could. 

Though, honestly? This wasn’t really what motivated Dexter to slip out of bed. It just… felt right. Somehow. He was a little on edge. After all, if the Dark Passenger was up and about, something was surely up. 

He found her in the living room, standing in front of his shelf. She was easily dressed, nightgown covering her only barely. To any other man, she’d be ravishing.

...No. Even to Dexter, she was… she was pretty. In a weird, ethereal way. The thought struck him straight in the chest and he was left reeling, frozen in place where he stood in the entrance. Staring at her moon-licked form. Yes, she was beautiful. Sea-stone eyes and gold-weave hair. 

He took a step towards her, feeling how sleep roiled off his body, and she must have heard him, because she turned to him, those beautiful eyes of her widening, showing the whites. Whites of terror. 

Once again, Dexter stopped where he stood. Her eyes stared at him. Frozen lakes of terror. He stared back. Why was she looking at him like that? Why-,

And then he saw what she held in her hands. In those ivory little hands. 

A rosewood box in her left, and a blood-slide in her right. 

Dexter recognized the drop of blood on the spot. Little Chino. Such an elusive little sport. If he hadn’t had the pride to catch his own killer, he would have made it. All the more fun for daringly decapitating Dexter. A nice night with a night fellow. What was he doing in her hand? He shouldn’t be out and about, away from home. 

Thoughtlessly, Dexter stepped closer. Eyes transfixed on the little slide, on his little friend, he completely missed how Rita withdrew from him, backing into the open air conditioner. Eyes wide and trembling. 

Soon, Dexter stood mere inches away, completely shadowing her from the soothing rays of the moon. His hand reached up, and he eclipsed hers in his own. He removed Little Chino from her grasp. Held him up to the moonlight. And let the memories flood back. It hadn’t been long ago, and yet it already felt like a memory so far gone, painted with nostalgia and tainted with bloody fun. 

-But why was his hand trembling? How come there was a tremor in his hand? He glanced down, letting his mind return to the present.

Ah, as it turns out, Dexter himself wasn’t trembling. Rita was. And since he was holding her hand, it transferred. How quaint! 

He let go of her hand, and she retracted it with such speed that Dexter briefly supposed it might have been pulled back by an invisible rubber band. “Sorry,” he said, fearing that he might have hurt her. The way she looked at him… Dexter hadn’t often been in the company of animals, they tended to either attack or flee upon his presence, and little white rabbits were no different, most taking to flight. 

This little rabbit had frozen. 

“Everything alright, Rita?” he asked softly, locking his eyes into hers. He tried to move closer. She attempted to meld with the wall. “Did you sleep badly?”

Rita shook her head. “N-, no-, I just-, I-, Dexter-,” good lord, Rita sure knew how to stutter. “Whose-, whose blood, um, is that?...” she asked, pointing one great, big finger at Little Chino. For a moment, a mere moment too long, Dexter considered telling her. ‘Why, this is Little Chino, my former friend! I stabbed him with a machete and here he is. Say hi!’ Oh, no, he couldn’t say that. Not at all. “P-, please, Dexter, tell me!”

At 2 am, only Dexter Morgan, non-human extraordinaire, could possibly have remained silver-tongued. “I, err, uh. Work?”

She gave him a look like he just told her a very, very tasteless joke. “Dexter, please!” Well. When she asked so nicely… Nah. Even if she asked him, he couldn’t tell her. If he did, he’d have to kill her. Ha-ha. Ha… “I… Dexter, I know about you.” -She did? “I’ve been-, I’ve been looking, and… and seeing the things you do, or what you don’t, and-, and I know you’re not normal, and with this-?” She held up the rosewood box to Dexter’s face. Practically rubbing him in the reality he wouldn’t accept. “It’s-, it’s too late, Dexter. You have to tell me what’s going on! You can’t lie your way out of this!”

And… and she was right. As Dexter stared into that box, containing one less slide than usual, he knew deep inside, as deeply as he’d ever known his own truth, that he’d been busted. Somehow, somewhere, he’d gone wrong, and now Rita, of all people, had found his dirty little secret. 

The truth of the matter echoed through his head, tearing down the wallpaper and tossing over tables and throwing his entire neat world into complete and utter disarray.

He? Had been found out? By his disguise?

No. No, that was impossible, that was-,

“D-, Dexter, that hurts,” Rita whined, trying to draw back and out of a grip Dexter hadn’t realized he’d taken. 

He let go of her arm. “S-, sorry, I just…” Left with no option but denial, he shifted into old patterns, old inhuman reflexes. “Out of what, Rita? What’s wrong?”

She transfixed him with a long, hard gaze. “You know what this is. You know that I’ve found this. If-, if you don’t tell me what this is, I’ll… I’ll call Sergeant Doakes. He’ll be here within the hour, and-, and you can explain this to him. Okay?”

Dexter stared at her for just a moment longer than he had to. With slow, careful movements, he took the rosewood box out of her hands, snapped Little Chino back into his slot. With that done, he closed the box with a little tock, and cradled it in his hands as he trailed back over to his couch. Rita didn’t seem too keen to follow, but when he gave her a quick look, a quick look that was true and not-false and everything he had hidden from her, she complied, scrambling over to sit behind him. Of course, at a tasteful arm’s length away. 

“My mother died when I was three.” Rita didn’t even try to react to the content of his words. Her attention was entirely and fully captured by the look on Dexter’s face. Inhuman. “I saw her die. I and my brother did, that is. She and three other men. We were left in a shipping container for three days. My foster father found us in dry blood an inch deep. It was a miracle we survived, but if left… it left some damage.” He turned to her, a fleeting smile dancing over his lips. “Would it help if I told you my brother was the Ice Truck Killer?”

She stared at him for a long moment before the words he’d just spoken finally settled in. “He was-, you, how… Um, how do you know? How can you-, you couldn’t have remembered so far back, I just…”

“He told me,” Dexter said, relishing in her reaction. “After all, he found me. Nothing obvious at first, just a few murders that I found rather… interesting. Then he left me little hints. Just little things. A barbie doll in the freezer. Body parts in places I remember. The usual.” Dexter leaned back in his seat. “He took me to the house we used to live in before it all. He brought Debra.”

Rita shook her head vividly. “Why-, why would he-,”

“He wanted me to kill her.” Rita jerked at the word. That word. ‘Kill’. Maybe she’d been avoiding it until now, Dexter didn’t know. “I didn’t do it. I couldn’t. But Brian… Brian had other plans. If I wouldn’t kill my fake sister, then he would.”

She gasped, placing one dainty hand in front of her dainty mouth. 

“Don’t worry, I… I killed him before he could hurt Debra.”

There it was again. Kill. Killed. Rita froze at the mere mention. Eyelids fluttering, shiver coursing through her body. “N-, no, he-, the Ice Truck Killer killed himself, I-, I saw it on the-,”

Dexter gave a dry, shallow chuckle. “Yeah. I made it look like it. I couldn’t let Debra think he just up and disappeared. She had to get closure, and… and this was how I did it.”

Rita shook her head, a tiny, desperate and ultimately denying smile blossoming on her pink lips. “But-, but that doesn’t explain the-, the slides, that’s just-,”

“That wasn’t my first kill.” Rita’s jaw snapped shut. Dexter could see the hope drain from her chest and puddle on the floor. “Brian and me… We weren’t so different. He was an empty, soulless husk that could only kill, and me…” Dexter turned an eye on Rita. She trembled and shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “I’m the same. The only real difference is that… that I have a code.”

“A-, a code?...” Rita stammered.

Dexter nodded. “I only kill the people who deserve it. And I make sure of it. I would never hurt an innocent.” An empty, unsaid ‘but’ lingered in the air between them. A word Dexter didn’t dare say. After all, all of a sudden, it didn’t feel true. “But… that is, unless… unless the innocent somehow, in some way…” He turned his eye from her. Looked out of the window. “-Find out too much.”

She drew a sharp breath. “F-, find out, find out what?...” She already knew what he meant. What he was trying to say in as many words as possible to make her think less. ‘People who know the truth can’t live.’ And, more so… ‘you can’t live.’ It was a horrible realization. Terrible, even, but in the middle of that cold, shallow terror that rose inside her, she felt another realization come on. The memory of something she’d seen on the television, a title she’d heard. ‘The Bay Harbour Butcher.’ Miami’s newest serial killer. The one who only killed other murderers.

That man, that man who killed so many… 

Now sat in front of her.

That little thought made it so much more… real. The bodies. The blood slides-, no, that wasn’t what they were, they were… Trophies, yes, that’s what they were. 46 little trophies of 46 little victims. Human beings. And one of them… One of those victims was Paul. Must have been. Should have been. -But was she sure? “-Did-, did you kill Paul?”

A blunt question. Dexter stared at her for a moment. His blank, hazy eyes, now so emotionless they might as well have been painted glass marbles, turned on her. “Yes,” he admitted. “I killed Paul.”

“Why?!” He hadn’t meant to say it so loudly, but she couldn’t help it. The need to know clawed at her insides. Dexter was a psychopath. A cold-blooded killer and a murderer and the worst possible kind of person and he was sitting right next to her and telling her all this just so that he could kill her in an hour or so and this was the last thing she would find out. Was Paul so annoying that he deserved death? Had he called Dexter something mean? “Why did you kill Paul?!”

Dexter’s gaze did not falter from her. A tender, almost human smile grazed his lips meekly. And for the first time since Rita started to look for it, it didn’t seem forced. It was a true smile. 

“I did it for you.”

-What? 

“I, you… What?...”

He looked out at the moon again, but his eyes and heart remained here. In the moment. With her. “I did it to-, to save you. And the kids. With what he was doing, what he was capable of doing… He could have killed you, you know?”

She threw herself to her feet, standing tall above Dexter where he sat. Fists balled, she clenched her jaw. “And you won’t?!”

He blinked once. And then twice. His face showed no emotion but his eyes were wide. “Why in the world would I do that?”

Because she found out his secret? Because she uncovered a serial killer in his face? Because she hadn’t loved him in weeks and was practically asking him to leave her?

“Why wouldn’t you?...”

He looked away again. Smiling. A tender, uncertain smile. “I guess, now that I think about it… It just wouldn’t make any sense.” He turned back to her. “I only dated you as a form of disguise, you know?” By this point, she was too jaded to let this break her heart. “Like a fake beard. It’s part of the deal when you’re a monster like me.” A monster. How accurate. “But… I think you might have become a little bit more than that.” -What? “I think, maybe, just maybe… I actually loved you. Not just-, not just as a formality, as… in a real way. Does that make any sense? I don’t know, I just-,” he shook his head, “when I thought about how Paul was screwing you over, I just got so mad, and my mind turned red, and… And before I knew it, I’d broken my code. All for a disguise.” He scoffed. “Isn’t that just odd?”

Maybe it was odd. Maybe it was strange, but it sure wasn’t what the perfect cold-hearted killing machine would do. No… A true serial killer would have taken her out by now. A defective disguise should be thrown away. Was she somehow… more than that? “I-, I guess it is? I don’t-,”

“You don’t have to say anything, Rita. I should have known something like this would have happened eventually. If we’d kept our life together, if I’d moved in with you… Hell, with the discovery of my dumping-ground, it’s only a matter of time before they catch me. It was bound to happen. Has to happen. Maybe it was better for it to happen like this, than… Than the police busted in while we were at home. It’d be a shame to break up a pretty marriage.”

“M-, marriage?!” Rita exclaimed, swaying on her feet. Dexter considered her for a moment. 

“It’s the usual outcome, isn’t it? We’ve been dating for a year now. It only makes sense we’d marry one of these days.”

A blush Rita thought she’d purged worked it’s way up to her cheeks. “W-, well, yeah, but-, but if you’re going to propose, do it in a more formal manner!”

Dexter grinned. A rare, playful grin that made Rita second-guess herself. Until he fearlessly threw himself on the carpeted floor and went down on one knee. “Well? Will you?”

She looked down at him, and all of a sudden he wasn’t the Bay Harbour Butcher anymore, he wasn’t the man who killed Paul and he certainly wasn’t a monster. He was just Dexter. dashingly darling Dexter with his endless patience and love for kids, and how could she possibly say no to that?

“Y-, yes,” she choked out amidst a flood of rising tears and sobs. “Yes, I do!”

Dexter grinned, and that was that.


End file.
